“An Ocean Mystery: The Missing Catch” to screen at UBC

Missing Catch invitation 2

Following its premiere on Earth Day at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and on the Smithsonian Channel, award-winning ocean conservation film An Ocean Mystery: The Missing Catch will screen in Vancouver on April 28, 2017.

Join the Sea Around Us for this free screening at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries – in the AERL Lecture Theatre (Room 120), 2202 Main Mall. Screening will start at 11 a.m. RSVP REQUIRED.

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Cautious fish evolve out of marine reserves

Photo by Matana_and_Jes, Flickr

Photo by Matana_and_Jes, Flickr

New research supports the creation of more marine reserves in the world’s oceans because, the authors say, fish can evolve to be more cautious and stay away from fishing nets.

The research suggests that by creating additional “no-take” areas, some fish will stay within marine reserves where they are protected from fishing. While other fish will move around the ocean, these less mobile fish will continue to live in the protected areas, pass this behaviour on to their offspring, and contribute to future generations, increasing the overall stock.

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Promoting small pelagic fish in Victoria

On March 11, 2017, the Sea Around Us Principal Investigator Daniel Pauly attended the international symposium “Drivers of Dynamics of Small Pelagic Fish Resources,” organized by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and the North Pacific Marine Science Organization in Victoria, B.C.

During a lecture in front of the “Remote sensing and ecology of small pelagics” Working Group, Dr. Pauly presented a paper “Mapping small pelagics, fisheries and the primary production they require,” which he co-authored with the Sea Around Us Senior Scientist Dr. Maria Lourdes Palomares.

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A globetrotter in the search for new adventures

Darcy Dunstan

Darcy Dunstan moved to Vancouver in September 2015 and a month later he was already working at the Sea Around Us.

Even though he is from a small town called Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, this 20-something has always pushed to expand his horizons. First, he moved to the British Columbia capital to pursue a biology degree at the University of Victoria. Having grown up close to the ocean and having explored the underwater world since age 10, Darcy was convinced that he wanted to focus his career on marine biology.

Even before finishing his university degree, he was already combining his passion for traveling and his love for nature. In the summer of 2013, he spent a couple of months in Belize researching tropical ecology and culture. Later on, in February 2015, he flew to Thailand to help conduct coral reef and seagrass bed surveys at a marine conservation centre.
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Jellyfish fisheries research awarded by the Vancouver Aquarium

Tuesday, February 21, 2017 was a great day for the Sea Around Us’ postdoctoral fellow Lucas Brotz.

During the celebration of the 22nd Annual Coastal Ocean Awards, the Vancouver Aquarium presented Lucas with the Michael A. Bigg Award for student research “for his exceptional contributions to the understanding of jellyfish in waters around the world.” Specifically, judges were impressed with his global catch reconstruction of jellyfish as food for humans.

For Lucas, this honour closes with a flourish a decade’s worth of work under Daniel Pauly’s guidance and, at the same time, opens up new opportunities to continue exploring the almost uncharted world of jellyfish.

LISTEN to Lucas explaining the “shocking findings” regarding the amounts of jellyfish people eat worldwide.

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